


Summer Love

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Aromantic, Brotp, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:11:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: in which the summer love actually happened two years agoTaemin noses against his jaw, nuzzling him, and kisses at his bottom lip again before parting his lips to let words out this time.“I still love you.”tumblr





	Summer Love

“He doesn’t eat it. He can’t have taken it.”

“Look… crumbs on his jacketses. He took it! He took it! I’ve seen him. He’s always stuffing his face when master’s not looking--”

“That’s a filthy lie!”

Taemin yawns against Jonghyun’s shirt as Sam tackles Gollum for probably the fiftieth time, blinking slowly against the “Sam, no!”s and “I’m sorry, Mr. Frodo”s. Jonghyun shares his sentiment. He honestly does not give a shit. More than twelve hours into this Lord of the Rings marathon still have not kindled a flame inside of him for the main plot. He just watches to be overly invested in Merry and Pippin, and sometimes to want to bang Aragorn, and the rest is pretty much filler to him. As Sam starts weeping, Taemin wiggles to get more comfortable against his shoulder. He breathes hot air against Jonghyun’s neck, a slow, sleepy sigh.

They really shouldn’t be snuggled up like this, hot as it is on this summer night, but they have the windows open and the fan directed straight at them and bottles of ice water to counter it out. And they need something interesting to fall back on during the boring parts of these long ass movies. He’s not too sure why they decided to start watching all three extended editions at one in the afternoon, but it’s well passed two in the morning now and he’s pretty sure that they’re both running on the forty progressively colder McNuggets they brought back from dinner like, six hours ago. This is what happens during summer break. Jinki goes to nerd camp and Kibum goes on vacation and Minho gets a job so the two of them are left with no one to stop their bad ideas.

Though… not all of their summer ideas were bad ideas. Their summer love of two years ago was pretty rad; fun dates and giggly kisses with nothing serious about it. It was just something to pass the time then, and it’s nothing but fond memories for Jonghyun now.

Fond memories and the occasional slow makeout session, Jonghyun corrects himself, as Taemin slips his sweaty hand around the back of his neck and turns him until their mouths meet. Oh. He guesses they’re doing this now. He angles his head better into it, mostly forgetting about the movie now that he has something better to focus on. If there’s something neither of them have forgotten, it’s how nice kissing each other is. They’ve had lazy platonic makeouts plenty of times since they broke up their casual thing two summers ago. Jonghyun is always into them.

He tunes out the movie in favor of pushing the hem of Taemin’s shirt up just enough that he can rub his thumb over his skin. Denethor McWorst-Father-Of-The-Year-Award is doing his asshole dad thing right now so they have a few minutes before Jonghyun will want to look up again to hear Pippin sing. To be honest, as Taemin sucks on his bottom lip, Jonghyun thinks that he won’t even mind if he misses that part for once. He soaks up the heat of Taemin’s skin, of his lips, of the hand he’s threading into the hair at Jonghyun’s nape, sighing into his mouth contentedly. He’d been craving this lately and he didn’t even realize it until just this moment.

Seconds pass, and then minutes, and then Jonghyun loses track of times as they indulge in the softness of each others lips. By the time Taemin pulls back with several more soft, slow pecks, a quick glance at the tv shows that Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are dealing with the King of the Dead and his ghosts. He doesn’t even remember what they’ve missed, nor does he care. Taemin noses against his jaw, nuzzling him, and kisses at his bottom lip again before parting his lips to let words out this time.

“I still love you,” he sighs, the confession barely more than a whisper against Jonghyun’s skin. Barely more than a whisper, but it shoots through Jonghyun’s ears like he shouted it, startling him out of his sleepy stupor so much that he almost sits up straight before he remembers that it would make Taemin fall.

“What?” he asks instead, wiggling to get a better view at his friend. Still? “You mean, like, from before? Before before?” He’s not being very specific here, but he can't remember the words that he should be using. Taemin nods anyway with a tiny little shrug.

“From two summers ago, yeah,” he confirms. From two summers ago. Jonghyun shakes his head, extremely confused. They broke up romantically, a mutual agreement between the two of them. They decided that way at the very beginning, before they started their little thing, that it would just be for that summer only. That was the whole point. Taemin can’t still be in love two years later.

“Bruh,” Jonghyun says, accusation heavy in his tone. Taemin winces, guilty.

“I know,” he groans, head falling back to rest on the armrest of the couch instead of Jonghyun’s shoulder. He runs his fingers through his hair to push it out of his face. “I know, I know, I know. I know we broke up and that was the plan and I wasn’t even supposed to fall in love in the first place--but I did.” He whines that last part, pouting helplessly at Jonghyun under loose strands of hair that he missed. “You know I did, remember? I told you.”

“I… remember,” Jonghyun says slowly. He does; they would giggle and tell each other that they loved each other all the time. It was a joke, a play on how their whole “relationship” was supposed to be a cliché not-actually-in-love summer love. Somehow, though, Taemin managed to actually fall in love, the romantic little nerd, and he’d told Jonghyun, “I love you, like, for real, like, literally, I’m like in love with you, dude.” And Jonghyun was fine with that, because Taemin pretty much acted the same and he still accepted the end of their relationship after summer with no fuss. Jonghyun didn’t expect him to just stop being in love the moment school started again, but he did expect him to be over it two fucking years later. “But… still, though,” he says. “Like…? Dude.” He is just. He’s really nailing this articulation thing. Hot damn is he making the clearest of sense.

“I’m bad at letting things go,” Taemin whines. He throws his arm over his face, then moves it away from his mouth so he can speak clearly. “You know I am. I thought I was gonna be over you at least by Winter Break that year but I just….” He huffs shortly at his own flaws. “You know I still go visit my hamster’s old grave in my backyard,” he says, peeping at Jonghyun from under his arm. “And I didn’t even have Nut for like, three months. And she isn’t even there anymore--remember when that racoon dug her up and ate her?” He stares at Jonghyun insistently until Jonghyun nods that yes, he does remember when that happened. Taemin grimaces at the memory. “I just go outside and sit where her grave used to be and feel sad sometimes, Jonghyun, you know that,” he sighs. “And… I don’t know, I’m not good with this shit. I don’t know. I don’t know.” He tries rolling over to hide his face in the couch, almost rolls off of Jonghyun’s legs, curses under his breath, rolls back, and then wiggles around in Jonghyun’s lap to roll over the other way. He buries his face in the cushion under Jonghyun’s arm with a little groan; Jonghyun snorts and pats his head.

“You are so fucking dramatic,” he tells him.

“Thanks,” Taemin mumbles back, voice muffled in the couch fabric. Jonghyun snorts again and shakes his head. Taemin’s explanation makes sense, he guesses, but it still throws him off, makes him feel wrong.

“All the times we’ve… made out, since then,” he starts slowly. “And snuggled and shit... you mean those were all like… one-sided unrequited romance makeouts?” He shifts uncomfortably at that thought. Eugh.

“Well, no,” Taemin mumbles. He turns his face so he’s not talking directly into the couch anymore. Now he’s talking into the little triangle of space between Jonghyun’s side, his arm, and the pillow. It’s still muffled, but less than before. “Just because you make out with someone that you’re in love with it doesn’t mean it’s a romantic makeout,” he says, like that should be obvious or something. Jonghyun begs to differ on that.

“It kind of does,” he says.

“Not for me,” Taemin replies, and Jonghyun snorts. Sure, then. Whatever. “Or, well, I mean,” Taemin adds quickly, “that last one, the one from two minutes ago? That one was, you know, pretty romantic. Because, you know, I’m really… really feeling it right now, you know? So, uh, yeah. But, uh, the others werent. Like-- you know what I mean.” Both of them are just true masters of making themselves understood, to be honest. Jonghyun forgets almost all of the words in his vocabulary and Taemin talks for five minutes. At least they understand each other. Jonghyun sifts his fingers gently through Taemin’s hair because the feeling of it calms him down almost as much as it calms Taemin.

“You know, um…,” he starts. “You know that I never actually loved you?” And that him being in love with Taemin is literally impossible, given his being aro and all, even though they hadn’t realized it yet back then. Taemin laughs quietly, and wiggles to lie on his back in Jonghyun’s lap again.

“Yeah, I know,” he grins. He seems amused as he closes his eyes against the dim lamp shining next to them. “I know it was always just a cute fun thing to you. And it’s okay, dude, I’m not like….” He gives Jonghyun’s chest small, gentle little pats with a sleepy hand. “I’m not expecting anything out of you, and it’s not like, a soul crushing true love I have going on, I just…. I felt like I should let you know.”

“...Oh,” Jonghyun says. Oh. Well, that’s simple enough, he guesses. Taemin hums in reply to his “oh” and Jonghyun plays with his bangs absentmindedly. “Do…,” he mumbles. “Would you… want to… maybe… try to be boyfriends again?” he asks. He doesn’t want to; the concept of an actual boyfriend kind of makes him feel weird now where it didn’t before. He knows that Taemin knows this, but he just wants to be sure. Taemin cracks open his eyes to peer at him in the dim glow.

“Do you?” he asks. Jonghyun hovers in his thoughts for a moment. He wants to be honest, but he doesn’t want to hurt Taemin by being blunt. But then again, lying would only make things weirder and more confusing between them. And Taemin looks like he wouldn’t mind either way anyway.

“Not… really,” he says. And by ‘not really,’ he means ‘definitely not.’ At his answer, Taemin closes his eyes again with a twitch of both his lips and his shoulders.

“Then no,” he answers. “Me neither.” He stretches his arms over his head lazily while Jonghyun’s lips curve into a grin all by themselves. How lovely. He doesn’t think he could ask for a better friend. “But, hey,” Taemin says, lowering his hands to Jonghyun’s shoulders and squeezing gently. “Wanna keep making out? This movie is boring.” He doesn’t even look back at the screen as he says it. Jonghyun does, just to check; some bullshit that he doesn’t care about is going on with the beginning of the battle of Minas Tirith. The Oliphaunts aren’t even there yet. He turns back to Taemin and tugs him up close so he can lie back for once.

“Sure,” he hums as Taemin wiggles to get more comfortable on top of him. They’ll break again whenever it’s time for Eowyn to be no man and the ghosts and shit, if they don’t fall asleep before that.


End file.
